Cold Vengeance

“What the hell are you doing?” Falkoner whispered harshly. “Who are you talking to? You can’t get rid of her, we’ll lose all leverage—!”

Esterhazy interrupted him with another gesture. “He’s got a radio. That’s how he’s doing it. The son of a bitch has a radio.”

Immediately comprehension bloomed over Falkoner’s face.

“You and I will go topside. We’ll surprise him when he comes to the bow to rescue her. Hurry. We’ll collect what men we can.”

They left the engine room and, weapons drawn, bounded up the stairway, then through the galley and out the hatch at the far end. There Schultz was waiting, gun drawn.

“There’s been gunfire on the sky deck—” Schultz began.

Falkoner silenced him with a curt movement. “Come with us,” he whispered.

The three of them moved swiftly and silently to the foredeck, then crouched behind the lifesaving containers. Not a minute later, a black-suited figure scurried up and over the rail on the starboard side, moving swiftly as a bat, then flattened itself behind the forward cabin wall.

Schultz took aim.

“Let him get close,” whispered Falkoner. “Wait for a sure thing.”

But nothing happened. Pendergast remained behind the cabin wall.

“He’s on to us,” muttered Falkoner.

“No,” said Esterhazy. “Wait.”

Minutes passed. And suddenly the figure came out of hiding, flitting along the foredeck at high speed.

Schultz let loose with a burst of fire, raking the forecabin wall, and the figure dove behind a forward davit, using the low steel bracing as cover.

The game was up; Falkoner fired, the rounds ricocheting off the steel with a loud clanging, sending off showers of sparks.

“We’ve got him pinned!” Falkoner said, firing again. “He can’t get out from behind there. Careful what you shoot!”

An answering shot came from behind the davits and they instinctively ducked. In that momentary distraction, the black figure sprang out from behind its cover and literally flew through the air, sailing over the railing in a headfirst dive, vanishing over the side. All three fired but it was already too late.

Falkoner and Schultz rose, raced to the side of the boat, firing down into the water, but the figure had vanished.

“He’s finished,” said Schultz. “At this water temperature, he’ll be dead in fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t be so damn sure,” said Esterhazy, coming up beside them and looking aft. The dark water spread out, heaving and cold, the dim wake receding into nothingness. “He’s going to get back on the boat using the stern swim rail.”

Falkoner stared back and for the first time a crack appeared in his preternatural cool, beads of sweat popping up on his brow despite the frigid temperature. “Then we’ll charge the stern. Take him as he comes back aboard.”

“Too late,” said Esterhazy. “At our rate of speed, he’s already back aboard—and no doubt waiting for us to make that very move.”

Pendergast crouched behind the stern, waiting for his assailants to come. The brief immersion had shorted out the headset. A pity, but the recent events implied that it had become useless anyway. He tossed it overboard. The vessel swept along, traversing the Narrows. The Verrazano Bridge glowed overhead and they passed beneath it, the graceful arches of light swinging back behind them as the boat forged ahead, headed for the outer bay and the open ocean beyond.

And still Pendergast waited.

CHAPTER 73

FALKONER STARED AT ESTERHAZY. “We can still beat him,” he said. “We’ve still got half a dozen men, armed to the teeth. We’re going to mass the men, make a full-frontal assault—”

“I doubt you have that many left,” Esterhazy cried. “Don’t you see? He’s killing us, one by one. No brute-force attack is going to work. We need to out-think him.”

Falkoner, breathing heavily, stared at him.

And in truth Esterhazy had been thinking, furiously, since leaving the engine room. But things were happening too fast, there just wasn’t time, Pendergast and Constance were…

Constance. Yes — it could work. It could.

He turned toward Falkoner. “That business of the woman flushed him out. That’s where he’s vulnerable.”

“It won’t work again.”

“Yes it will. We’ll use the woman — for real this time.”

Falkoner frowned. “For what purpose?”

“I know Pendergast. Believe me, this will work.”

Falkoner stared at him. He wiped his brow. “All right. Go get the woman. I’ll wait here with Schultz.”

A short corridor connected the engine room to the forward cargo hold. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Esterhazy sprinted down the corridor, threw open the door, entered, then slammed it shut, dogging it. No lock- picker could get through that.

The floor was spotless after the killing of the journalist the day before, the sailcloth gone. He went to the hatch in the middle of the V-shaped hold, undogged it, and threw it open. In the dim bilge, the young woman’s face stared up at him: hair matted, face smeared with engine oil. As the light gleamed in her irises, Esterhazy was once again taken aback by the naked, overpowering hatred he saw in them. It was a most unnerving expression: suggesting unfathomable violence, yet overlaid with a kind of detached, frozen calm. Her mouth was gagged and taped; Esterhazy found himself grateful she could say nothing.

“I’m taking you out. Please don’t struggle.”

Snugging his gun into the waistband of his pants, he reached down and seized her hair with one hand, grasping her around the shoulders with the other. Her mouth and hands were still securely taped, but that did not prevent a struggle. He managed to pull her out, the baleful stare still fixed on him. Esterhazy pushed her toward the door, then he paused a moment, listening. Holding her in front of him as a shield in case they ran into Pendergast, he undogged the door, opened it, and pushed her forward, keeping his gun trained on the base of her skull. The corridor was empty.

“Start walking.” Esterhazy directed her down the corridor to the forward stairway. They climbed it, ultimately emerging onto the foredeck. The vessel was moving through a moderate sea, into a cold headwind. The lights of Manhattan were a distant glow, the graceful arc of the Verrazano Bridge receding into the darkness behind them. He could feel the roll of the ship; they were now in open ocean.

Falkoner’s face was even paler than when he’d left. “Nobody can raise Eberstark or Baumann,” he said. “And look what happened to Nast.” He pointed at the main deck railing, where a body hung limply, dripping blood.

“We’ve got to work fast,” Esterhazy replied. “Follow my lead.”

Falkoner nodded.

“You and Schultz hold her tight. But be very careful. I’m cutting her free.”

The two men grabbed Constance. She had stopped struggling. Esterhazy uncuffed her hands, freeing her. Then he removed the tape from around her mouth.

“I’ll kill you for what you’ve done,” she immediately told him.

Esterhazy glanced at Falkoner. “We’re going to throw her overboard.”

Falkoner stared. “You do that and we’ll lose our only—”

“Just the opposite.”

“But she’s just a lunatic! He won’t trade his life for hers. He’ll let her drown.”